I think people like what's familiar to them, and its easy to dismiss the short and mid scales because of that. I see that in the classifieds at TB a lot...
"nice bass! if only it was long scale...". My thought is always:
"Well... that's kinda the whole point!?"The other thing is that people who play a certain type of music -and only that- might dismiss short scales because they won't get the sounds they're after (bright, ringing low register, Wooten slap tones, and so on). Although, I'd venture to say that some short scales could still probably pull that off (that modified JS I had could do angry piano wire sounds, my Triumph actually sounds great when I've had to do slap on it, the Alembic can run the gamut...)
Always get a chuckle out of ad copy like that
They're kinda selling themselves short there (
).. I know Fender conceived the Mustang as more of a budget/intermediate bass, but they play and sound great IMO.